


we would not go gentle

by AptlyNamed



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Background Nicky/Joe, Character Study, Gen, Post-Canon, exploring what fallibility means to someone so divorced from the concept, no beta we die like every extra in this movie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:42:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25977652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AptlyNamed/pseuds/AptlyNamed
Summary: Andy is rediscovering what it means to be mortal. There's a choice to be made, here.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Nile Freeman, could be read as preslash if u squint
Comments: 7
Kudos: 57





	we would not go gentle

**Author's Note:**

> quick warning: there's mention of bones being broken and healing, but nothing super medical or focused on that.

Andy knows the others worry. She’s different these days, more so than can be attributed to her new mortality. She knows, and while she is also aware it will come to a head sooner rather than later, she also can’t quite explain it herself, either.

It's just different, now. Andy is no longer used to the idea of finite; though for all it sits strangely, she is finding it suits her. Everything is just slightly _other_ , nudged a little to the left. 

It's like this: Baklava is still nut-warm and honey-sweet, but she finds herself caught by the thought of hands shaping dough, mixing filling, to produce something that will last less than two weeks. The loving practice of making impermanence. She closes her eyes as she chews and imagines the baker laughing as they went through the motions of generations before them. 

It is a gift, in a way, when she wakes and knows her lungs are fragile. Breath, too, catches her in a different way now- when they storm a fortified base, she has to think about the air and whether or not it will hurt her. 

So it's not that she enjoys breaking her bones. It's not. But there's something in the months spent recuperating, the weeks where a dull throb of agony sits under her skin. 

She doesn't quite have the words for how she likes this. Not the pain, but her body speaking and Andy having to listen. It reminds her of the ghost-thin memories of her training, her before. Her body had become an afterthought over the millennia, a beast of burden to push and break and push. The act of maintenance, of care, of the decision to repair- it helps, in the same way that Nile does. Something loosens. Her breath is freer than it has been in… a while. 

(Quynh.)

So yes, the others notice. It would be more surprising if they didn’t- centuries of knowing a person will do that. What is surprising is that Nile is the one to broach the topic. Or- maybe it shouldn’t be, really. Joe and Nicky trust her, and have been separated from death long enough that it’s more ornamental than anything else. The final flourish on the last page of a story that stretches long into the eons. Nile still knows it properly, by its grief-heavy robes and the cemeteries it fills slowly, patiently, and often abruptly. 

Her ankle is not yet quite healed when Nile approaches her. The painkillers are fading, almost enough to warrant another dose. Joe and Nicky sleep in the next room of the safe house. Their breath has been sleep-steady and even for several hours now. Nile’s hasn’t.

Andy gives it another hour, but Nile stays in her bed, though they both know the other is aware that they are awake. Her ankle throbs. Andy closes her eyes and breathes through it. When she opens them again, Nile is sitting beside her, painkillers in hand and a look in her eyes.

"This better not be some kind of- of repentance, or punishment." Nile says, cold like the desert night is cold. There is fury in the cool intensity of her voice, and fear in the dark night of her eyes. Her hand is warm when she passes Andy the pills, only shaking when she pulls it back.

"No." Andy says. "That's not why."

Nile waits. In her mind's eye, Andy can see how she will perfect it, in a century or two. The demanding pull of her silence, weaponized, as Nile sits with her eyes half lidded, waiting for the other person to meet her where she stands, be the person she knows they can be. 

Andy allows herself a half smile at the image. Nile's hands tighten slightly in her lap. 

Andy pauses to dry swallow a pill, thinking over her words carefully. How do you say this pain means something, anyway? That this is her body, speaking, telling a story she'd forgotten how to listen for. For all that Nile has given her, Andy gives it her best shot. 

“Before,” she says, "Whenever I was injured, the healing just… happened. I didn't have any say in it. With this… I chose." She means, _I chose to sit, mostly bedridden, until I was about to crawl out of my skin._ She means, _I chose to do the stretches that ached and hurt._ She means, _I chose to see it through and continue on, for as long as I can, I choose._

She pauses. Lays her hand over Nile's. Looks at the weight in her eyes and decides to be brave. 

"I chose." She repeats, the weight of a binding promise heavy on her tongue.

Nile inspects her. Nods. "Okay." She says, shoulders loosening. She's probably the only one of the team that can understand what Andy's saying. Andy hopes it takes her a long time to forget.

Her ankle heals well. She gathers scars, war wounds, physical reminders of battles fought and won. Carrying places and people with her- this one from Turkey, blocking a knife in an alleyway. This one Nile cleaned and bandaged in a gas station bathroom in Australia, quieter than her usual quiet and more reverent besides. 

Most of the marks on her tie back to Nile, these days. She'd like to say she's just trying to equalise it; she does have centuries more memories with the others, without the guarantee of time to build the same with Nile. But that's not it. It's simpler than that.

She's been a sister, a lover, a leader. She's never been whatever Nile makes her. Honest, maybe. Brave. 

It's one thing to look at the crawl of eons and force your way forward. It's one thing to shoulder the weight, to be Sisyphus and Atlas all at once, and to carry the world as a mindless burden. It's another to crack and fall under the crush of futility, and still keep faith. Still believe in the quiet reverence of kindness. Of trying. 

It's the sort of lesson the young usually teach the old. Something proud and fond and sad curls in her chest. 

Andy stops, watching the others walking ahead of her. Watches Nicky patiently teaching Nile Italian phrases. Watches Joe curl an arm around Nicky, neither breaking stride as they lean a little closer together. 

Nile pauses mid phrase- _vuolo ballare con me?-_ and glances back at Andy. 

“You coming?” she asks, cocking her head, and is there really any other answer Andy can give her?

“Of course,” Andy says, and keeps walking.


End file.
